The applicant is aware of accessories for vehicles, primarily motor vehicles, which have an acceleration responsive element and a device for recording if the acceleration responsive element provides a signal indicating that the vehicle has been excessively accelerated. However, this figure on its own is of no real value, as over a period of a month or some other control period, the vehicle could have been utilised to a greater or lesser degree. Thus an indication is required of the amount of time the vehicle or its driving engine have been in operation. It is also desirable to know not only if the vehicle has been over-accelerated, but also if the engine has been over-revved or if the vehicle has been driven at an excessive speed, particularly in these days of fuel shortages and speed limits.
The applicant is further aware of devices which give a graphical indication of the speed of the vehicle versus time. It will be appreciated that such devices, due to the graphical result, are difficult to interpret and to obtain any meaningful information. Further, as such devices have to provide a graphical record over fairly lengthy periods, the graph is squashed, and it is accordingly not possible to ascertain if the speed of the vehicle has been varied rapidly in a short period of time. Further, if one wishes to determine the acceleration of the vehicle, to determine if the vehicle has been excessively accelerated, the slope of the graph at each point must be determined. This is extremely difficult, if not impossible, and extremely inaccurate.
It is thus an object of the invention to provide an accessory for a vehicle which detects and records abuse of the vehicle or its engine as well as the amount of time the vehicle or its engine have been operated.
It is further a object of the invention to provide such an accessory which provides the information in a concise, easily read manner that does not need to be excessively processed in order to provide a meaningful result.
It is a still further object of the invention to provide such an accessory which provides the driver of the vehicle with an indication that the vehicle or its engine has been, or is about to be, abused.
It is an alternative object of the invention to provide an accessory which first warns the driver that an abuse condition has occurred but only records the event if the driver has not taken corrective measures in a certain time period.